Research into conformity - Asch (1951) Flashcards
What is Asch (1951) aim to expose?
Whether people conform to a group even when they know they are wrong, an unambiguous task.
Who did Asch use in the study?
123 male undergraduates.
What did the task involve?
Estimating which of three comparison lengths matched the target line.
How large were the groups - how many of these were confederates?
7-9 people in a group.
All but one were confederates.
Where were the real participants positioned?
Either last or second to last to answer.
What did a neutral trial involve?
The confederates gong the correct answer.
What were the trial called in which the confederates deliberately gave the wrong answer?
Critical trial.
How many trial were done in total?
How many of these were neutral and how many were critical?
18 trails.
12 critical and 6 neutral.
What was the conformity rate found?
33%
What did the conformity rate mean?
The real participants agreed with the incorrect answer given by the confess in approximately 1/3 of the trials.
However, what was also discovered?
Some individual differences were found - Asch reported that 1/4 of the participants didn’t conform on any of the critical trials, while around half conformed on 6 or more trials.
How many participants conformed on all of the 12 critical trials?
One in twenty.
What did he discover when he interviewed the participants after the experiment?
That the majority of those who conformed trust their own perceptions and judgements but changed their public behaviour.
What do the results of Asch’s study show?
Because the answers were obvious, it shows the impact of majority.
What is the first limitation of Asch’s study
Low historical validity.
What experiment was done that show that the results Asch’s study may be a product of time?
Perrin and Spencer in the UK in 1980 using science and engineering students.
Perhaps individuality was more ‘in’ at the time.
What did Perrin and Spencer’s (1980) study find?
Only one conforming individual out of 396 trails.
What is the second limitation that could be said about Asch’s (1951) study?
Cultural variation.
What study was done that show that the results of Asch’s study may not take into consideration cultural variations?
Smith et al (2006) analysed results of Asch like studies occurs a number fo different cultures.
in individualistic cultures conformity rate was 25% whereas collectivist cultures the average conformity rate was 37%
